Commemoration Stone - St Bartholomew's Hospital, Rochester, Kent.
Posted by: 
MeerRescue
N 51° 22.945 E 000° 30.916
31U E 327096 N 5695282
A Commemoration Stone placed at the New Road entrance to St Bartholomew's Hospital in Rochester, Kent.
Waymark Code: WMGTYA
Location: South East England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 04/10/2013
Views: 5
St. Bartholomew's Hospital, Rochester is the oldest existing hospital
in England, predating its more famous namesake in London by fifty
years. Six hospitals were founded before the Norman
Conquest in 1066, but none
of them are still functioning. Shortly
before St. Bartholomew's was founded Archbishop Lanfranc (consecrated
1070) erected a hospital at Harbledown outside Canterbury,
but it is no longer in existence.
The original hospital was on the main road between Chatham and
Rochester which is now known as Rochester High Street. Being for the
relief of the poor and leprous, it was built outside the city itself
in an area of Chatham which lay within the jurisdiction of Rochester
called "Chatham Intra" ("Chatham Within"). The
hospital was run by a "Custos" (Warden) or Prior with a number of
canons.
Finance was obtained from grants and from the revenues of lands
settled upon the hospital, the normal pattern of support for
institutions during the Middle Ages. Even with this income the
hospital might well have failed but for donations from the Priory
of St. Andrew. The priory contributed daily and weekly provisions to
the hospital along with the offerings from at altar of St. James and
at that of St. Giles, both within the cathedral. On
the installation of a new bishop they had the right to collect alms
from those present at his table, and even had the cloth covering the
table. Henry III gave
"forty shillings yearly arising from land within the Hundred of
Andeltune".
Following a representation by the Prior and brethren of the hospital
to Edward III in
1342, the King ordered an inquiry into the revenues of the hospital. The
inquest before Sir Richard of Cobham revealed holdings worth £9
yielding an income of 21s 6d.
The
enumeration notes that there were nine brethren and sisters ("fratres
et sorores") and the prior who was himself a leper. Consequently in
1348 he granted that "poor lepers ... should be quit from all manner
of Taxes, Tollages contributions and other quotas and charges for
ever". Additional funding
was obtained from Henry IV.
In 1449 Henry VI confirmed the previous charters. More
info at wikipedia
here
The stone inscription reads;
TO THE GLORY OF GOD / AND / IN HONOUR OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW THE APOSTLE /
THIS STONE / COMMEMORATING THE BUILDING OF THIS HOSPITAL / AND THE
RECONSTITUTION OF THE CHARITY FOUNDED / BY BISHOP GUNDULPH 1078 / WAS
LAID BY THOMAS HERMITAGE DAY ESQUIRE / ONE OF THE BRETHREN ON BEHALF
OF THE PATRON / BRETHREN AND TRUSTEES OF THE HOSPITAL / AUGUST 24TH
1861.